Member Blog

So you have decided to open your own gardening business. But, it is not easy, especially with the given competition that we are witnessing these days in London. The British people sure love their gardening and there is a lot of other business that can pose a big threat to your own.

The important thing is that you shouldn’t give up on your business model. See to it as you have planned as there is no going back now. This type of business is attracting more and more entrepreneurs each year. The market is growing and there is a big need for it. So it actually makes sense owning this type of a business at this moment. Nevertheless, everyone needs a push. A small nudge if you will. Take advantage of all opportunities that are laid out for you so as to improve your gardening business. You will always receive the best tips from someone who is experienced in the field and who knows that they are doing. Handygardeners is one of the most popular gardening firms in London and here is how they view this problem and some advice that they have given us that you can implement in order to improve your current business idea.

Make Your Business Recognisable

Change the face of your business and make it more recognizable. If you have a good logo with a great marketing tactic, your business will become much more recognizable than before. This is a very important factor and can determine the future of your gardening business. As there are a lot of others you are competing against, being unique certainty helps. You can hire a professional designer who can improve your logo and make something entirely eye-catching for all the potential customers.

Make a Good Website

Today, it is important to have a website that will attract future customers. What a lot of you may not be familiar with is that a good website is responsible for more than half of your business. It does not matter how and where you market your business, having a good website with a clear and professional design goes a lot.

There are experts who can help you with this and will allow you to improve your booking score. If you do not have a website at all, it is like you do not exist in the eyes of the consumers.

Online Business Listings

After creating your website, the next step is to have your business listed on line. People who are specifically looking for gardening services will most likely search for it on the website which offers service recommendation. If you list your business there you will have a much greater chance of getting hired for a specific job. Google and Yelp and probably the most popular services which are currently available, but the more places you are listed at the better are the chances of you getting seen by potential customers.

Pro Bono Work

It is not always about money. Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to take two steps forward. That’s why it does not hurt to do certain jobs for free. People will realize your potential and your future customers might hire because of that. Working for a renowned client with a lot of influence on the community will score you a lot of points which you can then turn into future customers in the long run. Think about more pro bono work in the future but choose your customers carefully.

Social Media Presence

Social media is very important today. Even if you do have your own site and have listed your business on all gardening sites, having a social media profile is very important. Social marketing has become a very powerful tool for large companies who use it to their advantage to make their products known all around the world.

 You can do the same and the best thing would be to form accounts on all the popular social media sites. You can even hire a person who can control and manage all of them, giving you a better social media presence. Many people are so used to the fact of using social media that they use it to search for various kinds of services. So will your gardening business get recognized in this manner.

Being Eco Friendly

Whatever your business model is and whatever line of work you are in, being eco-friendly is important nowadays. London is having a big problem with waste and not a lot of it is disposed properly and most of it does not get recycled at all. Being eco-friendly will get the attention of people who are trying to improve our world. Making your business safe for the environment will attract more customers who are of the same opinion.

Having a clean home or working area is a very important aspect of everyday life. Mainly, it makes the place where you spend most of your time look neat and comfortable to live in. Secondly, it is a lot healthier if the quarters you dwell the most are clean.

Whether we are talking about an office area, a commercial place or even your home, cleaning it thoroughly is necessary. This needs to be done on a regular basis and we don’t mean just taking out the trash, we do mean some thorough scrubbing. Your area of work sometimes needs a professional touch and you will not have always a lot of time to clean out your house because of work.

Enter professional cleaning services! There are a lot of benefits to hiring a service that will take care of all the hard stuff for you. Office areas will benefit from it as it will make your place of work look professional and acceptable for your clients.

Commercial areas often need a touch up as they deal with a lot of materials that can leave you with a lot of debris. Professional disposal may work better and you will not have to deal with it by yourself. Finally, if you are constantly busy with work and everyday life affairs, cleaning is probably the most difficult thing on your task list. Fortunately, the UK has some great companies that provide office cleaning services which can take care of your working space. You can even have them come by at designated hours so you can organize your other affairs.

These are just some of the benefits that professional cleaning service can offer you. But let’s look at it in a more profound way. We promise you that once you learn more about the advantages that professional cleaning offers you will not hesitate to hire one.

Professional Tools and Equipment

Every professional needs its tools. Professional cleaning services come with their own equipment that regular people do not own. This is one of the biggest advantages that they pose compared to regular cleaning that every one of us can do. This raises the cleaning level too much greater heights and will also get the job done much faster. You will immediately notice how different it is when a place is cleaned with special tools compared to regular cleaning appliances.

Most importantly, special tools and equipment can allow the cleaners to deal with some harder problems. If you have a certain situation which is impossible to deal by yourself, a cleaning company that comes with their own special equipment will resolve the issue in no time.

Environmentally Safe Cleaning Services

Most of the companies that are present in today’s market provide eco-friendly services. This is mostly because of the current laws. All of the companies involved in cleaning and removing waste need to conduct their business according to a certain code. Safe disposal is what makes the face of most cleaning companies. Additionally, most companies pride themselves in being able to remove the waste safely and dispose of it without damaging the environment.

If you are an environmentally-aware person and are trying to protect the environment, you should make sure that your waste is disposed of in such a way. No matter how the area you are personally, professionals can still do this type of disposal better than you. So no matter the waste you have and no matter the place that has to be cleaned, professional cleaning services will employ a safe removal method which will, in turn, be safe for the environment.

Trained Staff

The staff that you have working fro a professional cleaning company is specifically trained for that purpose. So let’s say that you are an amateur athlete. You train every day and can run fast and jump high. But one day you just so happen to have the opportunity to play against a professional athlete who has all the current technology of the world and professional training facilities available to him. You are fighting a losing battle.

The same thing goes with cleaning. No matter how well prepared you are and how importantly you view regular cleaning a professional will always be able to do a better job than you. This is particularly beneficial for office areas where you meet your clients. Having a professional cleaner arrange your office space will make the company look professional in the eyes of the clients.

At the 54 hour hackathon that is Sync The City, in 2017 Callum Coombes and his colleagues won with their brilliant concept to protect lone workers.  They won because of a solid business case, having spotted a gap in the market with clever use of technology.  It’s one thing winning a competition, however hard that may be, but another altogether to actually bring their concept to market.  The key question was is there a market in the gap they had identified?

Hear their journey here in this insightful podcast.  The lessons learnt, how they operate as a team, what they would do differently if starting again.

Crucially in less than two years, they have a fully functioning product and proposition – ready to launch to the world!

https://businessgrowthclub.net/sync-the-city-in-2017-to-full-product-launch-the-safepoint-story

What does the term Corporate and Social Responsibility (CS&R) mean to you? Chances are it is something that you associate with large scale companies who have budgets that enable them to make generous donations to good causes or are able to allow employees time off to do charitable work. However, there is plenty that even a sole trader can do to fulfil their own CS&R ambitions, which can be equally rewarding both for the business and for the recipients of their goodwill.

As a self employed florist and balloon decorator I deal with lots of requests on a regular basis asking for support in various forms. Having done a three year stint on our local school PTA I know only too well how difficult it is to generate support from local businesses to help boost often very small scale fundraising events. As a result, I choose to support certain local good causes in 3 different ways;

Raffle prizes with discount vouchers

With so many requests for raffle prizes, I now support a number of small scale events near me with a balloon arrangement and a discount voucher. A table of vouchers which may have considerable value on paper, can look quite uninspiring so by donating something visually attractive it can really encourage raffle ticket sales. It has even more impact when the charity gives permission for their logo to be replicated onto a balloon! The inclusion of a voucher also encourages the lucky recipient to redeem it against my products at a reduced rate.

Paid balloon décor with a charitable discount

For bigger events, larger scale décor is more appropriate but not so cost effective for me to just give away. Instead, I can apply a percentage discount which allows the charity to WOW their guests with some impactful décor at a more affordable price. Personalising balloons with the charity logo really brings the décor to life, and reinforces the branding message during the entire event.

  Free balloon décor

This year I have had the privilege of working with two amazing local good causes, whose stories have really touched me; littlelifts.

I first met Oa, who founded littlelifts, at a networking meeting where we took part in a comfort box packing event. Oa was diagnosed with primary breast cancer at just 28 years old. Having received lots of little packages and gifts during her treatment, Oa decided to give something back by creating comfort boxes containing items that help with the side effects of chemotherapy and other products that give a ‘little lift’ at a very difficult time. These boxes are now distributed to women at the start or during their treatment at various hospitals across East Anglia, and the boxes are funded as the result of money raised at various events.

At Easter, littlelifts ran a cupcake decorating workshop. I donated two balloon bouquets (including the littlelifts logo) and a stuffed rabbit raffle prize which drew a lot of attention! This event raised £500 which is enough to support 12 women facing chemotherapy for breast cancer.

To find out more about littlelifts and how you can support them, please go to www.littlelifts.org.uk

The other good cause I have chosen to support is Sunshine and Rainbows, a not for profit scheme run by local photographer Shellie Wall. Shellie offers free photography sessions for families with a child who has a life limiting or life threatening condition, and some local businesses contribute something towards a gift box that the family receive. I donate a personalised helium balloon which Shellie uses as part of the photoshoot, and whilst donating a single balloon is a small gesture for me, the impact on the children (who have all adored their balloons) is far, far greater. The smiles on their faces are priceless and melt my heart, and the photos themselves become absolutely priceless to the whole family if things take a turn for the very worst.

If you can donate anything to help Shellie keep this truly wonderful service going, please head to https://shelliewallphotography.co.uk/sunshine-rainbows/

Being able to give back is very important to me, and I truly believe that if all businesses could give a little something to a local cause, we could soon make an amazingly positive impact in our local communities!

If you’ve enjoyed this blog, why not have a look through some of my other Blogs!

Claire Carney is an independent florist, a Certified Balloon Artist and NABAS Approved Balloon Décor Instructor based near Norwich, Norfolk, UK.

If you are among the business owners who are worried about the strategies that can help your business get well-known enough that people know about your product, you do not need to worry anymore. There is a technique through which a lot of small businesses have got an advertising benefit as well.

That is a technique known as pay per click advertising. There are a lot of companies in the business world that utilise this form of marketing. If you look on Gogle alone and simply search for ‘specialist PPC agency in London‘ you will find countless companies. There are a lot of benefits of a PPC agency. 

PPC boosts the traffic on your website

If you have spent a lot of time creating an attractive and user-friendly website, but no one knows about it, what benefits are you getting out of it?

It is always better to use the techniques employed by a PPC agency, and that is that the paid advertisement of your company would appear on the very first page that you open on the search engine and that is how people will get to know about your website. The more the traffic is on your website, the greater the chances that someone will purchase the product that you offer. 

You only pay for clicks

PPC is a cost-effective marketing technique as you do not have to pay for anything unless someone clicks on the ad. When someone does so, it means that the ad is getting a degree of recognition and therefore so is your company.

Not difficult to produce

It is not difficult to have a PPC ad per se. You can make it yourself or even hire a professional to make it. And with the time you can have that ad running, that too is not a lot of time.

You can analyse the performance in real-time

With other marketing strategies, the results are unknown until the marketing strategies are applied and the work has been ongoing for some time. However, in the case of PPC advertising, everything happens and runs in real-time, from the number of clicks to all other real-time data. That is better for a small company so that one can easily analyse how the company is performing and if they need to improve their methods in advertising or to get people as their loyal customers.

A warrant control is a legal document that is given by the court if you have any debt and it is the type of document that allows the agents of warrant control to have a check at your place, and they are allowed to get control over the things you own. Whatever they seize will typically be sold at auction to collect the debt that is required from you. It is necessary that the warrant of control is given by the court, and the court has the right to file such warrants against you if you have not paid a fine charged within the country of the court judgment.

What are Bailiffs?

Bailiffs are also known as enforcement agents, who are hired by the court and may be allowed to enter your home if do not pay your debts on time. The court will first send you a notice to pay your debt within a set period of days or weeks and if you do not clear the charge fined on you then the bailiffs may be allowed to enter your house, and may well be allowed by the court to take certain posessions from your place without your express permission.

Can a Warrant of Control be Stopped?

It is advisable to get rid of the CCJ payment as soon as possible to avoid getting into the situations which may lead to the issuing of a warrant of control, but if you are late then you can still get rid of this warrant by applying for the necessary paperwork from the court. This paperwork will likely help you to get rid of this warrant as soon as possible.

What Bailiffs Can and Cannot Take

There are certain rules under which the bailiffs are required to work:

What Can Bailiffs Seize?

• Luxury items including TVs, vehicles, bicycles
• Any money, cheques, securities, stocks, offers, and pawn tickets that have a place with you
• Vehicle claimed by you and kept at your home, business or open interstate

What Can Bailiffs Not Seize?

• Another person’s assets
• Things that are required for your work or belongs to your workplace
• Things that are the basic requirements for your essential needs such as garments/cooker/furniture
• Anything that is owned by a child

If you have any further queries regarding bailiffs or the warrant of control, you can simply view this website for more information.

Health and safety policy cannot be effective without good communication and trust between lone workers and their employers. What tools are available to help employers and staff take responsibility for their health and safety, and how you can you build a better safety culture in your organisation? Find out more here: How can employers and lone workers share responsibility for health and safety?

Being a lone worker can be fulfilling and exciting, especially for self starters who enjoy working without close supervision. Lone workers have legal rights to receive adequate protection so they can operate safely. Find out what responsibilities your employer has to you as a lone worker, and what you can do to be a safer lone working employee here: What are my health and safety rights and responsibilities as a lone worker?

Employers are morally and legally responsible for the health, safety and welfare of all their employees, especially those that work alone. In this article Safepoint explores how organisations employing lone workers can better protect their staff and company, and what some of the ramifications are if they get things wrong. Read more here: How should employers protect lone workers – and what are their liabilities?

There are more than six million lone workers in the UK – around 20% of the workforce. As the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) points out, a lone worker is someone who “works by themselves without close or direct supervision.” Learn more about the varied field of lone working and how lone worker safety and productivity can affect your business here: Who is a Lone Worker – and Why Should You Care?

Whether it’s a beer garden bumble or a full blown outdoor extravaganza, there’s something about summer in Norfolk that makes you want to get exploring the opportunities to take work…and marketing for that matter, outside. With so many fantastic examples of events leveraging the outdoors as their energizing venue from the Norfolk Show to Norfolk Enterprise Festival, to Fresher than a Fayre, we’ve extended our range of outdoor products ready for the summer events season.

From high flying flags and portable pop-up banners, to full customizable marquees and parasols, we’ve sourced a full range of products that cater to pretty much every outdoor event need. 

We’re committed to quality and recently launched our campaign for better portables, which we have considered in our choice of outdoor products. So if you or your business are looking to take events outside, there’s more to us than meets the eye and we’re always on hand to offer no obligation advice on getting the most of outdoor events as well as offering a full design, management and production service for all your further needs. 

If you’re looking to plan your own outdoor event or have a product in mind, get in touch today to ask how we could help.

We have all perused news articles exposing the vulnerabilities of specific mobile phone applications and social media sites. These pieces will often mention the threats posed by spyware, malware and similar types of malicious content. In fact, your information might have even been compromised in the past. Do these very same dangers extend to a small Norfolk-based retail website? Certainly not, as cyber criminals only target big businesses and credit card information. This is actually more of a myth as opposed to an accurate observation. You may be surprised to learn that a growing number of smaller businesses have experienced serious data breaches in recent times. Why is this the case and how can trusted ecommerce platforms be of assistance?

A Larger Threat than You May Have Realised

Cyber criminals are extremely intelligent and one of the main issues faced by security teams is that their methods evolve at a breakneck pace. This makes thwarting the latest threats exceedingly difficult. In fact, many software patches are only created once a flaw in a system has already been exploited. These situations tended to be limited to big businesses such as Amazon and Apple in the past. However, cyber criminals are now targeting smaller firms due to the fact that the majority do not have the proper protocols in place.

So, it is relatively easy to steal your data. Perhaps more worrisome is the fact that the personal information of your customers (such as home addresses or credit card numbers) can become compromised. This would irrevocably damage the reputation of your business and there is no doubt that a great number of customers will be lost as a result. So, what can you do to protect yourself from such emerging risks?

Ground-up Protection from the Digital Age: Better to be Safe Than Sorry

The first step is to use your website in synergy with a trusted e-commerce application such as Shopify. As there is a great deal of antivirus technology already built into this software, you will be provided with a robust firewall. It is also possible to adjust many of the associated settings so that your platform can become fully customised (such as blocking access from a certain portion of the world or identifying sources of spam).

Another excellent suggestion is to use a professional antivirus software bundle such as Norton or Avast. This architecture is updated constantly, so the latest threats are able to be quarantined and removed before they can cause any real damage. Check to see if these services can be used in conjunction with your website, as coding issues can occur on occasion.

Please note that this article was not intended to exhibit an alarmist flavour. It is instead aimed at educating local Norfolk businesses in regards to the online threats which currently exist. A bit of preparation goes a long way in this sense. If you believe that your portal might be at risk, it is better to take a proactive approach as soon as possible.